How to unzip a file on the server using PHP?

How to unzip a file on the server using PHP?

It is best practice to utilise compressed (zip) files while transferring data from one place to another. A website usually has a great many number of small files and even though each file is not very large at times it can take a long time to transfer individual files from one place to another. Thus it is best to compress your files into one main file and transfer that to the destination.

Control Panel lacking features

Not all website control panels have all the good feature that you generally require. A feature rich control panel will usually have all the bells and whistles like compression and extraction feature, feature to edit files, and many such useful website development features. However some control panels don’t possess the file compression and extraction feature and thus that it is when it is useful to have the ability to perform such functions by yourself.

Usage

It is possible to download a file like unzip.php from the internet and upload it to your web server. Then load this file in your browser. This will bring up a simple form where you will need to enter the name of the zip file and click ‘unzip’. This will extract the files on your server in the same directory. However you do need to be patient since this process can take a while.